KZN Rally Review 2003
The 2003 KZN Regional rally series is about to explode into action on 8 February at Masons Mill in Pietermaritzburg. This event, sponsored by Subaru, will be a departure from the norm, with the stage consisting of four parts, combining tar and gravel, making tyre choice an important factor.
Spectators are welcome to come along and watch the fun. Numerous car and team changes have taken place since the 2003 championship ended.
KZN champion Mally Saville will continue his national campaign with Alec Harris in the CTH Transport Subaru Impreza, but is expected to enter his 1300 Conquest in some of the regionals. 2002 class S4 winner Paul Gouveia and Dean Redlinghuys, KZN navigator champion, will continue to race together in their highly competitive Transaxle Nissan Sentra.
Peter Altersky and Alan Bisset are building a new car after having rolled their Conquest in the Automark rally in November 2002. Peter bought the ex-Serge Damseaux factory car, so they should be exceptionally quick this year.
2002 Class S3 winner Chris de Wit should take at least a few regional wins this year, despite concentrating on the national rally series. Kosta Koumatarakis and John Costa have a much stronger engine this year, so expect them to be at the top of the log. Hopefully their car will be repaired in time after Kosta allowed his soccer star brother George to test the car with unfortunate results.
Ken Westermeyer and Detlef Wedekind will be concentrating on the regional series this year so they will be top contenders. Wayne Westemeyer and Johann Pienaar have spent a lot of time testing over the break, so expect good things from them in a hopefully more reliable car.
Danie de Kok and Vaughan Robinson will be much more confident in their car having removed the digital fuel injection system that gave them so much trouble last year and replaced it with carburettor’s. Koos Peters and Lionel Mustard will again be racing their Ford Escort in S3.
2002 Class S2 winners Richard Vaughan and Natasha Flack have a new motor for their Golf II this year and the full backing of Fastcar Performance, so they may put some pressure on the faster cars in S3. If Mally Saville does enter his 1300 Conquest, it will be in this class, so Richard will have his work cut out trying to match Mallys pace.
The Stuart Cranston/Steve Plumb team may well surprise everyone by entering a front wheel drive Alfa Export instead of their usual Guillietta. This car will see them in class S1 competing with S1 winners Nkosinathi Nzimande and Fani-Fani Moyiwa in their Golf II. Nkosinathi will also be racing in the national series in the VW sponsored A5 Golf. Bappie Rubuluza and Khulile Vakalisa have bought a new Golf 1 body and will race it in S1 once it is ready. Until then they will continue in their Golf II in class S3.
Other possible entries include a Nissan Skyline 2,8 recently bought by Steve Atkins and a return to rallying by Paul Riley with navigator Megan Stow in a new Subaru Impreza, who totalled his old Impreza on the first corner of the first stage of the 1000 Hills Rally last year. The corner has since been re named Subaru Sweep in his honour. Steve Putter and Craig Engelbrecht may both enter cars this year, but neither have confirmed at this stage.
Whatever else happens, expect some nail biting excitement from the crews this year. Watch this column for dates and times and results from all of the KZN Rally Championship events.
Watch this section for more news...
|
